eBay share price holds more or less steady on marginal earnings beat

After hours trading on Wednesday saw global Ecommerce auction site and marketplace eBay’s share price decline by 5%. Then, over the last two days of the week, it pretty much recovered, as investors weighed up how they feel about the company’s largely expected earnings report. Over the long term, however, their sentiment is easier to ascertain: eBay’s share price is up by 26.74%, year to date.

eBay’s share price fluctuated at the end of last month

SOURCE: Yahoo Finance

For its third quarter, eBay reported adjusted earnings of 48¢ per share (EPS) on revenues of $2.4 billion. This is a slight beat against analysts’ expectations of 48¢ EPS on revenues of $2.37 billion. It’s also a little better than the company did last year, when it reported an EPS of 45¢ on revenues of $2.2 billion.

eBay’s forecasts are similarly aligned with the Street’s expectations. It sees fourth quarter revenue of between $2.58 billion and $2.62 billion and an EPS of between 57¢ and 59¢ (analysts expect EPS of 60¢ on revenues of $2.58 billion). For the full year, eBay projects revenues of between $9.53 billion and $9.57 billion. Analysts expect $9.5 billion.

If all these numbers seem confusingly similar, the company’s CEO and president, Devin Wenig, was, at least, refreshingly blunt in his estimation of how the company performed over the three months to September. On an earning call with analysts, he said:

“In Q3, we drove acceleration across all three of our platforms in the US and internationally, delivering strong top and bottom line financial results. Our rapid product innovation cycle continues and our customers are responding to the changes we're making. As one of the world's top e-commerce destinations, we delivered nearly $22 billion of volume this quarter and our growth was the fastest it's been in over three years.”

DisclaimerThe views expressed in this article are those of the author at the date of publication and not necessarily those of Dominion Fund Management Limited. The content of this article is not intended as investment advice and will not be updated after publication. Images, video, quotations from literature and any such material which may be subject to copyright is reproduced in whole or in part in this article on the basis of Fair use as applied to news reporting and journalistic comment on events.